


To Be Young, Dumb, In Love

by Salomonderiel



Series: Those who can, teach [1]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Cute, M/M, almost accidental marriage proposal, it works so so well, oh the cutes, primary school teacher!Courfeyrac, trust me it works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-30
Updated: 2013-03-30
Packaged: 2017-12-06 23:44:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/741575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salomonderiel/pseuds/Salomonderiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Courfeyrac is stuck with the most adorable overtime that's ever existed, and realises that his pupils quite possibly love Jehan more than they love him. But then, how can he blame them?</p>
<p>Around 4,000 words of shameless adorableness. That's actually all it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Be Young, Dumb, In Love

**Author's Note:**

> Now, this is set in the british school system. Here's an easy way to tell the age - take the school year they're in, and add five, and you've got the age you'll be entering that year. Junior school - because I'm horrid and go to a private school and therefore only know Junior/Senior school systems - Junior school is from years 3 to 6.   
> Also, all these adorable little fuckers are based off adorable little fuckers I know from helping out at my Junior school. Really, though. They are actually that adorable.   
> Oh yeah - this is as much LucentPetrichor's headcanon as it is mine. I gave her Courfeyrac as a primary school teacher, she gave me the marriage proposal. (*shakes fist* PRIIIYAAA!!)

Sent 11:53 : _Sorry, luv, but I’m being roped into afterschool care tonight._

Received 12:01 : _That’s fine! So you’ll be home about 5?_

Sent 12:03 : _Yep. Sorry._

Received 12:05 : _Stop saying sorry, silly! It’s fine._

Received 12:05 : _In fact, want a lift home?_

Courfeyrac smiles at the phone he’s cradling beneath his desk. As his little pupils aren’t allowed their phones out in class, he’d feel kind of guilty if he had it on full display, so he only ever texts on the sly. He still can hardly believe that the kids _had_ mobiles. When little Charlotte asked to call her mum because she’d forgotten her packed lunch, and then proceeded to pull out an iPhone, he’d nearly had a coronary. _He_ hadn’t even had a gameboy until he was in year six.

(In the end, after making Charlotte wait in his classroom for her arrival, the mum wasn’t able to come. So Courfeyrac shared half of his ham and mango chutney sandwiches with her, and they sat there and discussed the merits of Barbie versus Bratz dolls until the bell rung for the end of lunch. The next day, Charlotte brought in her own ham and chutney sandwiches, telling that ‘Mr Courf makes the _best_ lunches’. He hadn’t the heart to tell them it was actually his boyfriend, not him, that had made the sandwiches. Making good food was _power_ over eight year olds.)

Sent 12:07 : _Yeah, that’d be nice_.

Then he places the phone back in its place in the top desk draw, looking up to check that everyone _is_ painting their pharaoh masks and not each other, or themselves, or the furniture – or the selection of teddy bears in reading corner, yeah, that’s happened before. Mr Jelly Belly (he’d try and say he didn’t give the bear that name, but he totally did) still has a nice blue eyeshadow and purple complexion. But no, for once, everyone’s keeping the paint, if not just on the brushes and the home-made papier-mâché, then at least within the boundaries of the newspaper protecting the wooden desks.  

It’s almost peaceful. Moments like this are rare, in the career of a junior school teacher. You learn to cherish-

And then the bell goes for lunch, and the children are screeching and bottles of paint are being knocked over people are fighting over lunches and James and Jared and Mitchell and Oscar are all asking if they can get out the football goal on the playground and Sasha wants to know who’s allowed in the library this lunch and he has to get them all lined up and get them across to the main school building to the cafeteria without losing any of the 23 bundles of joy and exuberance and misguided curiosity.

Oh, and he has to go and find Jonny in the staff room and tell him that Giorno won’t be doing PE today, as he’d fallen over a plastic dinosaur first period and sprained his ankle.

With a sigh, he pushes himself out of his seat, absently adjusting the thin tie – what is it, is it the polka-dot one today? Yeah, because he’d had to change out of the purple one when Jehan spilt orange-juice down it – and, resigning himself to getting at least _one_ child sobbing into his shirt by the time the afternoon begins, rises from his seat.

But then Annabel’s grabbing his hand and tugging him and telling him about her new rabbit that she’s called Bilbo, and he’s grinning again.

*

Quarter to four, and he’s actually managed to spend a day without having to use his shirt to dry up tears. And only two grazed knees, but both Jeremy and Delilah had been grown up about it and hadn’t even wanted to go to the nurse.

Though he _is_ now behind the scheduled curricular, what with postponing teaching about rivers to tell his kids more about Egyptian mummies, which then of course prompted most of the boys to start chasing the girls and each other around the classroom and trying to eat their brains whilst Sasha sat on a desk and declared that when _she_ was mummified, she would be the prettiest, with sequins on all the bandages. She looked distraught when he told her people weren’t mummified anymore. Then, to make her smile, he said that he was sure she could probably get mummified if she wanted, as long as she asked her parents first.

He then made them all tidy up, telling them that they’d now have to learn about rivers in their history lesson tomorrow, instead. He made it up to them by telling them he’d read them the Egyptian story in the Time Travelling Cat books on Friday afternoon, if they wanted.

And thus, they are all sent home cheering.                                                                                    

Only little Charlotte and Avneet are staying after school from his class, but there are several year fours and fives. Most of the year sixes are old enough to be trusted to walk home, now, as most of the people who go to this school only live across the river.

His seven after-school lot – self-named Lost Boys after the last school production of Peter Pan – are a few too many to hide with in the library, and no kid likes being trapped in a classroom after the final bell went. So, instead, Courfeyrac rounds them all up from the various classrooms, gets them to grab the boxes of Lego, pads of paper and their pens, board games and books, cushions and blankets and toys from the younger classrooms, and camps them all out in the foyer.

The secretary raises an eyebrow, but she’s wearing flip-flops to work again and besides, she owes him for that bit of gossip about the head and the traffic warden. So he just grins back, and she laughs as he falls back onto a pillow tower built by Charlotte, Sarah, and a girl from year 4 who he’d had in his class the previous year.

He won’t lie – it made him happy that none of the kids demanded to know why Miss Kelly wasn’t there. In fact, most of them just flung their arms around him and squealed his name. Except the year fives, of course. They were too _old_ for that. He fist-bumped the three year five boys, instead.

Thirty minutes in, and he’s brought out his CD players and taught them the dance to Saturday Night by Whigfield, taught the lyrics to Modern Major General to five of them whilst the rest played the handstand game (under strict orders to surround themselves with cushions), and is now lying face-down on the floor and losing _dreadfully_ in a game of snakes-and-ladders, his pitiful attempts to get higher than the fourth row being _destroyed_ by Mike, Denny, Katty, a fifth-year he _thinks_ is called Giuseppe but is _definitely_ Giorno’s older brother, and Jonathan, whilst the rest all take part in a competition to draw the most realistic image of a unicorn (the yeti’s next). They didn’t have enough counters for all of them to play the board game, so Courfeyrac’s place is being marked by the broken leg of a T-Rex. Mike, slightly unfairly, Courfeyrac thought, has been allowed to use a small toy tank, which has _definitely_ contributed to his position only four spaces away from the end square.

Two kids were already collected and taken home, so when the buzzer sounded for the main door, Courfeyrac doesn’t lift his head from where it is buried under a blanket from despair (fucking snakes, man), just wafts a hand to indicate permission for the next kid to go home.

A few seconds later, and there’s a knock on the glass. Courfeyrac wafts his hand towards the door slightly more vehemently. Really though, the main door is a glass door and is _right there_ , the kid can _see_ their parents, so they really should be letting them in.

Mike – was that Mike or Denny? Either way, one of them pipes up with, “What, you want us to let him in, sir?”

“ _Yes_ let him in!” Charlotte cries cheerfully, “Don’t you recognise him? Stupid, it’s Mr Courf’s friend, he was at sport’s day!”

“Aw, yeah, no I know him! He did, like, twenty keepy-up-ies, even with Jake pulling faces at him!” Denny/Mike replied, just as cheerfully. “But whassee doing here, sir?”

Actually, three of the Amis had come to this year’s sport’s day – Combeferre had wanted to talk to the head about the senior school’s chance to visit the university he was working at, and Bahorel had tagged along for the ride, always the type for loving random and chaotic sports events. The kids _had_ loved him, making him carry them to the mock-up shoebox podium, one under each arm, if they won until health and safety put a stop to it. But Jehan had been the one who had surprised them all by showing off hitherto unknown skills with a football.

And true enough, upon raising his head, Courfeyrac sees that it is indeed Jehan waiting behind the glass doors, beaming. He’s clad in his usual flower-patterned jeans – the old ones, with patches almost completely worn through – with just a plain, and very loose cotton purple vest. A perfectly matching purple ribbon holds his braided hair in place. Courfeyrac can’t see his eyes – hidden behind the lenses of his pink-framed Ray-Ban sunglasses – but Jehan must have seen him looking, because the beam suddenly turns ten times bright, and he starts waving.

“Nah, it’s fine,” Courfeyrac says, smiling, and he takes the blanket off so he can get to his feet. “I’ll let him in, guys. You keep playing – I was doomed to fail anyway.”

The kids yell something back, but Courfeyrac has stopped listening. Eyes fixed on Jehan, smirking and shaking his head, he walks over to the door and presses the button that releases the lock. Jehan pushes the door open and all but skips inside and straight at Courfeyrac. And Courfeyrac has been hugged by small kids all day, but being hugged by Jehan is always far more preferable. For one thing, it doesn’t hurt his back.

For another, there’s a warmth in Jehan’s hugs. A safety and promise of, not only a safe and loving home, but gentle touches, random poetry, hot chocolate as they settled down to watch Downton Abbey or Miranda, of waking up to kisses being traced down his spine. Writing across the white surfaces of the kitchen cupboards, whole days spent staring at paintings in an art gallery, ham-and-mango chutney sandwiches and, perhaps of orange juice spilt down his favourite tie but always, unequivocally love.

“You’re here a bit early,” Courfeyrac mutters, smiling, when Jehan finally steps back.

Jehan shrugs unashamedly. “I got bored,” he explains. “And all that was on TV was reruns of How I Met Your Mother and the recorded episodes of British Bakeoff, but I can’t watch them without you, and that made me realised I missed you, so... I came to see you!” Jehan smiles, and asks, “That was okay, yes?” but there isn’t any doubt in his voice, and there doesn’t need to be.

“Okay is _wonderful_ ,” Courfeyrac quotes, leaning forwards and pressing a quick kiss to Jehan’s nose.

Someone collides into the back of his leg. Strong enough to make him buckle – must be a year five boy. “Bet I could beat you at keepy-upy now!” Giuseppe demands of Jehan, looking up at him from behind Courfeyrac’s knee. “I’ve been practising.”

Jehan pushes his sunglasses up on top of his head and smirks as he replies, “Perhaps I’ve been practising, too.”

He had. They’d got back to the cafe after the sports’ day to find Bahorel already there, boasting of Jehan’s prowess at football in a way that Grantaire had managed to interpret as a challenge. This had all somehow led into a footy tourney on the local green that weekend, teams of four and five, all of them wearing shorts – even Enjolras, and gods knew what blackmail material Grantaire had used to make _that_ happen.

And before Courfeyrac can try and claim back a semblance of control, two of the boys are yelling about football at the top of their lungs and run off to fetch a ball, ignoring all Courfeyrac’s desperate protests that they’re _inside_ , for crying out loud. Sighing, Courfeyrac turns back to Jehan, and says, “This is all your fault. We were playing snakes and ladders quite happily, quietly, and _safely_ before you showed up. You’re a bad influence.”

“Hey, don’t blame Mr – your friend, he’s really pretty!” Avneet pipes up, and from how she’s now grabbed all the pink pens and crayons, it appears she is now drawing Jehan. Courfeyrac can’t blame her. “And everyone knows people that pretty must be nice and therefore can’t be a bad infu- _influence_.”

Jehan’s laughing under his breath, Courfeyrac can hear him. “Trust me, Avneet,” Courfeyrac says sternly, “pretty though he might be, Mr Jehan definitely _can_ be a bad influence.”

“Yes, but he’s still very pretty,” Charlotte states simply. Courfeyrac can’t even tell what she’s drawing. He can’t usually tell what she’s writing, either, though, so that’s no change.

And then Jehan is visibly laughing, one hand resting on Courfeyrac’s elbow, so Courfeyrac can’t stop himself smiling as he replies, “Yes, Charlotte, he is very pretty.”

“Well, I think Mr Courfeyrac is very pretty too,” Jehan says in a quiet voice, and it’s hard to tell if the girls heard him or not, but it doesn’t matter, because Courfeyrac did. He just about has time to brush his fingers over Jehan’s, before the boys come crashing back into the room wielding, if not an actual football, then at least a basketball, and Courfeyrac isn’t even going to try and guess whose classroom that was from.

It takes them seconds to start bouncing it and trying to balance it on the back of their heads, then Mike grabs it and throws it at Jehan and Courfeyrac _knows_ Jehan will catch it perfectly, but he can’t not say, “Carefully, boys! We’re _inside!”_

“Then let’s go outside?” Jehan suggests, and it takes a second before Courfeyrac is sure if that’s a betrayal, or a genius idea. “The weather’s beautiful,” Jehan promises.

Grinning, Courfeyrac reaches up and pushes the bridge of Jehan’s sunglasses. “I can see that.”

In the end, it’s not really down to him at all, not when seven children somehow all have their hands on his arms and back and are propelling him towards the door. He at least gets a say in where they go, directing them all to the grassy slopes to the side rather than the concrete main playground. None of this is worth the shit he’d get in if one of the kids went home bleeding because they’d fallen over on his watch.

And besides, on the grass he can sit with Charlotte, Avneet and Katty, whilst Denny, Giuseppe, Mike and Jonathan all chase around Jehan as he dribbles the ball, his braid flying as he spins and occasionally the boys will forget about the ball, and try and hit Jehan’s hair as it passes over their heads. Jehan’s always laughing when he’s out in the sunlight, like this, always smiling. And as he plays with the kids, as they fall over themselves to try and take the ball from him he’s chuckling and teasing them, and he’s glowing, just _glowing_.

It’s not often that Courfeyrac is jealous of Grantaire, but right then and there, he’s jealous of his friend’s art. He doesn’t want to lose this sight, right here. He never wants to forget it.

It takes Charlotte throwing herself onto him, to make him tear his gaze from Jehan. “You _really_ think he’s pretty,” Charlotte is giggling as she wraps her hands around his neck and hangs there, seemingly unaware that a man’s neck is not designed to have children hanging from it.

Courfeyrac laughs, and does his best to disentangle her. “Well, he is, isn’t he?” he says. No luck with the disentangling – he’s stuck like this until she gets bored.

“I like his trousers,” Katty says. “I think I have a dress with that pattern on.”

Thinking on it, it’s quite likely that Jehan has a dress with that pattern on it, too, but Courfeyrac doesn’t tell her that. Instead, Charlotte’s talking again, saying, “I like his hair. I wish I could do that with my hair.”

“I could do that with your hair,” Courfeyrac says, having to tilt his head down to look at where she seems immovable from his chest.

Finally, she falls off him, and he finds himself being looked at with three pairs of wide eyes. “You know how to do _that_?” Katty demands, pointing at Jehan’s hair.

Courfeyrac nods, looking across to Jehan again. Sure enough, he’s gone back to showing off, the ball resting on the back of his neck leaving his braid to hang down, in perfect display for the girls to admire it. “Yeah, I do it for him sometimes?”

“Did you do _that_ one?”

“No,” Courfeyrac confesses. He only does it on lazy mornings, when Jehan’s lying on his front beside him, and Courfeyrac braids and unties his hair just for an excuse to run his fingers through it. Sometimes he’ll do in the mornings, if Jehan’s too tired, hands stuck to the side of his coffee mug, needing Courfeyrac’s hands to sort his hair out instead. The first time Courfeyrac learn to do it was when they were round Grantaire’s, and Jehan’s arms were covered in paint up to his elbow, and so he’d asked Courfeyrac to tie his hair back so he didn’t get paint in the golden strands, and sometimes Courfeyrac would still do it when he came back after a day at work to find Grantaire and Jehan in their flat, covered in paint and more often than not, a bit tipsy. Then he’ll tie Jehan’s hair back carefully, smiling as his love giggles at the worst jokes. After, he often joins them, going to work with a headache the next morning.

“I could tie your hair like that, if you want?” Courfeyrac offers, and then all three girls are jumping at him. He laughs, attempts to calm them and then makes them do rock, paper, scissors, to see whose hair he’ll braid first. Avneet wins, and so she kneels in front of him. His hands work on autopilot as he splits her hair into sections, and starts to wind them together.

“Why is he here?” Katty asks after a few seconds silence, and it’s not meant in a rude way, just the usual focused questions of a child who hasn’t _quite_ learnt what rude means yet.

“He was going to give me a lift home, after I’ve finished making sure you lot don’t get into trouble,” Courfeyrac explains, fingers twisting through Avneet’s hair. “He just decided to come a bit early.”

“Does he live near you?”

“Actually, we live together,” Courfeyrac says carefully. Now, kids will never judge you. Teenagers, yes, but kids never. But parents will judge you all the more if they hear about it _through_ their kids.

However, he doesn’t get the expected question of ‘why?’ Instead, Avneet surprises him, by saying quite seriously, “I bet he’s a good cook.”

And that has Courfeyrac laughing. “What? What makes you say that?”

Avneet shrugs. “Mum says all the nice guys can cook well.”

Avneet’s mum’s not wrong. “Actually,” Courfeyrac said in a stage whisper, “shall I let you three into a secret?”

The word ‘secret’ is a magic word with little girls. With just that word, they’re all leaning in – back, in Avneet’s case – completely silent.

“Well, you know that sandwich I let _you_ share?” Courfeyrac asks, pointing at Charlotte with a grin.

Frantic nodding.

“Well, it was _actually_ made by him,” Courfeyrac confessed, nodding across to Jehan, fingers going back to place in Avneet’s dark hair. “He makes the _best_ sandwiches.”

The responses to this are varied. Avneet nods sagely – she’s going to be a little wise thing when she’s older, Courfeyrac can tell; he should probably introduce her to Combeferre, give him a protégée. Charlotte claps happily, seemingly happy that she ate a sandwich made by Jehan. It really should have been expected that Jehan would have the kids wrapped around his little finger – he’s done exactly the same thing to Courfeyrac, after all.

Katty, however, looks across at Jehan and seemingly considers him for a moment, before saying, “Can I marry him? When I’m older. Mum always says that she chose to marry dad when she found out he was funny _and_ could cook – so can I marry _him?_ ”

Jehan’s smiling widely, but it’s hard to tell if it’s because he heard – the boys aren’t that far away, but are being quite loud – or if it’s because he’s just enjoying himself.

Suddenly deciding he doesn’t really care either way, Courfeyrac finishes off Avneet’s hair with a scrunchy he’s being handed and says, “Sorry, Katty, I’m afraid you can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because _I’m_ going to marry him.”

The boys all yell out suddenly, and Courfeyrac looks up to see the ball going flying off to the side and Jehan standing completely still, staring at him, mouth open.

So he could hear them, then.

Courfeyrac smiles back at him, softly, waiting.

And then, Jehan _beams_.

Charlotte is yelling that it’s her turn to have her hair done next, and Mike’s running back with the ball as Denny reappears saying that it’s five and that parents have started to arrive, but Courfeyrac’s finding it really hard to focus because, Jesus, has he just done what he thinks he’s done?

But he has. He really has.

He can’t move, even as the kids run back up to the front entrance, not until Jehan walks over and takes his hand and pulls him to his feet. “You should probably see the children off home safely,” Jehan prompts, giving his hand a squeeze.

Yeah, he probably should.

But instead, he waits until the children are almost out of sight before lifting his hands and cupping Jehan’s face, pressing their lips together for as long as he dares with impatient parents waiting for him.

“Sorry, I probably could have asked in a more romantic way,” Courfeyrac breathes over Jehan’s lips, but Jehan’s shaking his head.

“I can’t think of any way more perfect,” he says softly. And that’s it, that’s why Courfeyrac loves him, why he’s going to marry him. He’s going to _marry_ him.

He’s going to marry Jehan.

Back at the school, only a few of the parents are already there and Courfeyrac has to make hurried apologies as to why they weren’t there, but most of the parents seem to be happy that their kids were spending time getting fresh air. Denny’s mum is a bit harder to please, but Jehan – _his_ Jehan, his, his _fiancé_ – smiles at her, and says something and it’s fine.

The whole time that they’re waiting for Avneet’s mum and Giuseppe’s granddad, Courfeyrac and Jehan are leaning against the wall, holding hands, but neither of the kids seem to mind, nor to their relatives.

They follow the families out. The secretary can lock up after them.

They’re in Jehan’s old, battered little green VW beetle when Courfeyrac finally kisses him again, feather-light kisses to his lips, cheeks, eyelids, forehead, Jehan’s hands holding his wrists, stroking the side of his face, wrapping around his neck.

“Are we doing this?” Courfeyrac asks, barely more than a breath, but needing to check. “Are we actually going to do this?”

Jehan doesn’t speak – doesn’t seem able to speak – but nods, just nods, his nose knocking against Courfeyrac’s, their foreheads pressing together.

The third kiss since they got engaged is longer, lasting.

The forth is pressed up against the door to their flat.

And by the time Courfeyrac is kissing Jehan in the cafe, in front of their friends and to the sound of their cheering and cries of ‘fucking _finally_!’, he’s long lost count. But all he knows, all he _cares_ , is that it won’t be their last.

**Author's Note:**

> We're British, none of this peanut-butter-jam sandwiches for lunch. Just good old ham, with the condiments of your choice.
> 
> thank you for reading, and please, if you could spare a moment to comment, it's make me very happy!


End file.
